Monster
by Shardas
Summary: Luke hasn't always been a werewolf. Once, as we all know, he was a shadowhunter. So how did he feel to have such a change in his life right up to the Accords? Has he always felt like a monster?


It had been a month. Well, only 28 days, but still. It had been a month. A month since that bite. The jump, the bite, the heart-wrenching wound that hurt like hell. Don't get me wrong, I took the precautions, watched the moon, and I made sure to try to stay indoors. Let's just say...it did me no good. 28 days later, I had woken up, groggy and naked, in the middle of the woods just outside of the city of Idris. There had been a small white rabbit, thrashed, bloody, and dead, on the ground at my feet. I could still taste the sharp, salty taste of its blood in my mouth, it's drippy, red fluids flowing down my chin, my chest, my arms.

I remember finally opening my eyes, as if waking up from a dream, to see claws, as if from a lion or panther. Long, black claws digging into the rich, dank earth, making the weeds and natural grasses rise up as they were pulled from the ground. At first, I jumped back a bit, not realizing...

They were _my_ claws.

Then I really jumped. Well, jumped really isn't the word...more like pounced. I pounced back and landed light on my toes...er. I landed lightly on my paws.

That's about when I noticed the fur. The brown-black fur along my arms, legs, chest, down from the tips of the black talons on my toenails to the top of my head. It was a thick type of fur, rough, starchy, and very scratchy. Let me tell you. It's scratchy in all the wrong places. I stood up, staring at my hands, the inside of my palms soft yet firm, like a layer of leather wrapped over the skin...a dogs' paw pad.

I don't think that was exactly when I knew it one-hundred percent. I still had a hint of un-realistic doubt that I wasn't what I thought I was. I knew I wasn't. I couldn't be... I can't. I am not a downworlder.

But it was kind of like reality hit me; a huge boulder of pure shock just surging into my soul, and I knew. All just in a moment, I knew.

I wasn't a Shadowhunter anymore; I wasn't what I was born as. I was changed. I belonged to the lycanthropes, the downworlders now. I was a werewolf.

A werewolf who was named Lucian...who's now named Luke.

But that was years ago, twenty to be exact. A whole twenty years.

I remember after I knew, I ran back to Idris, to the Fairchild Manor where Valentine and Jocelyn were staying. They were then married, their first child, Jonathan, merely one or two at the time. I thought of Jocelyn, seeing me like this, and I slowed down. Would she have pity on me? Would she try to kill me? She already knew it was a possibility that I had been changed, but reality is a lot different from probability. "She's one of my best friends. The wife of my best friend. She will understand." I remember myself thinking, before running faster, seeing the Fairchild Manor just up ahead.

I remember running up the porch steps, Valentine sitting in one of the two chairs, rocking in it back and forth. He had a pocket knife in one hand and a set of clothes in the other, consisting of boxers, black jeans, and one of my old training shirts, my old combat boots, and a pair of starchy black socks. Without a word, he threw me the clothes, which I caught and quickly put on, just in time before Jocelyn opened up the front door.

She looked startled to see me, as she had every right to. I was still covered in the dead rabbit's blood; probably had fur in my hair. Most of the hair on my body had disappeared, as I hadn't noticed I had changed back a bit, the claws still out, as well as the canine teeth. "Lucian?" She had asked, and took a step towards me before Valentine stood up, blocking her way to me.

"Yes Jocelyn, it's me." I had said, and sighed as her look fell. She knew too, they both knew.

"Jocelyn, give us a few minutes alone will you?" Valentine said, and stared at her heavily until she, very slowly, went back inside, shutting the door softly. Valentine turned back to me, looking me up and down, before shaking his head. "Lucian...come with me." He had said, and I followed him out through the front yard of the Fairchild's Manor and down the street.

We ended up about a mile from Idris and the manor before he stopped in a clearing, the foliage around the both of us thick and tall. We were in the woods, the ones I had come to know werewolves, fairies, and maybe a vampire or two liked to roam. I was looking around me before I noticed he had the dagger he had been holding on the porch in his hands, it out towards me.

On instinct, I froze, before I realized he was holding the blade of the dagger, not the hilt. The wooden section of the weapon pointed towards me, as an offering to take it.

I didn't know what I expected from Valentine, but I guess I should have known. "I ought' to kill you myself Lucian, but seeing you now, I can't bring myself to do it. Do the honorable thing Lucian; end your own life." Was all he said, before he kissed the tip of the weapon, tossed it at my feet, and left quickly. Walked away and left me staring at the weapon on the woods grassy flooring. I knew then I wouldn't be allowed back. I wouldn't be back in the Circle, for now I was their enemy. I wouldn't be Valentine's parabatai, his friend. Most importantly to me, I wouldn't be Jocelyn's friend.

That killed me.

I bent down, and picked up the dagger off the grass, wincing just a little as my fingertip nicked the blade. It was silver-tinted, a werewolf blade. If I pierced myself anywhere on my body, it could very well kill me. I threw the blade, out into the trees, it probably setting deep and low into the ground, where I hoped it would stay. Then I ran. I just kept going, out through the night, sometimes as a man, sometimes as a wolf. Until I crossed the border, out into France, where I settled into one of the local werewolf encampments, staying for a few weeks until I moved on to another camp, then another, until I had lost count. I remember finally hitting Spain and then Portugal before I settled into a werewolf clan, and stayed for three weeks.

That was when I had gotten the visit. I still to this day don't know how she had found me, but it was in this small little werewolf pack in Portugal when I got a visitor. One of the lower ranked werewolves came to me while I was asleep in one of the pack's caves that a young shadowhunter woman wanted to see me. I knew immediately who it was.

She was crying when I saw her, angry at me for not letting her know I was still alive, but it all down played when she had told me she had come to warn me. There were rumors in Alicante of a werewolf who had once been a shadowhunter, and that Valentine had heard the rumors and was looking for me.

He had come...once, but my clan hid me, and Valentine ended up leaving without bloodshed. From then on, I met with Jocelyn in secret, leaving the Portugal clan and running back to the border of France, though I knew it was dangerous. I found another faithful pack to keep me safe, and lived there. Jocelyn had told me every day about what had been happening in Alicante, and when the new year came, that it was the year of the Accords. She told me of the Circle's plans to disrupt the Accords signing in the Great Hall of the Angel, using a demon to steal the Mortal Cup.

I didn't believe her for a while, most still had some hope Valentine wouldn't stoop so low, but to no avail. He was Valentine, he would follow through with his idea.

After that Jocelyn and I sent messages to the fairies, the warlocks, and even the vampires, warning them of Valentines plans, and when the day came for the Accords to be signed, I watched with my pack as Valentine and Jocelyn left the manor house; as she bent to kiss the blonde-white hair of her son. They rode into Alicante by carriage, my pack running on all fours close behind.

When the Accords were presented, battle erupted, and my pack burst through the door, as did fairy knights, warlocks, and the night children. Many had died, but Valentine escaped with the Mortal Cup.

I remember him telling me "A werewolf that fights with a sword and dagger is as unnatural as a dog who eats with a fork and knife." Caught off guard, I had told him "You know swords and you know daggers, and you know who I am. If you must address me, use my name." He smiled cruelly then, and he shouted to me above the loud clashes of metal on metal. "I do not know the names of half-men. Once I had a friend, a man of honor, who would've died before he let his blood be polluted. Now, a nameless monster who wears his face stands before me." I saw him as he raised up his long sword, the blade gleaming. "I should have killed you when I had the chance." He had shouted, and lunged for me. We fought through the night; I saw Hodge and the Lightwoods flee, but I still watched Jocelyn as she fought, before running towards us.

"Valentine stop!" She had cried. "This is Luke, your friend, almost your brother!" With a growl, Valentine held up his dagger to her throat, and I dropped my blade. He saw what I held secret in my eyes. "You always wanted her," He had hissed. "And now the two of you have plotted my betrayal together. You will regret what you have done for the rest of your lives!"

With that, he pushed Jocelyn towards me, shoving her roughly to the ground at my feet, and I knew. Then I knew why Jocelyn was so afraid of him, not just because of the screams she heard through the walls at night, or the things he had done to Jonathan, but because this was his true self. Everything he had ever done that was cruel was him. Not out of anger, it was his entire being, rotten, cruel, demonic.

I looked back up from Jocelyn to find Valentine gone, but also the Mortal Cup as well. He had vanished, gone away with, and Jocelyn and I stood still together as the battle thinned out around us. We saw Michael Wayland flee, following the Lightwoods who had run earlier. We watched shadowhunters we had never met fall; watched downworlders bodies' get slammed hard against walls, before falling to the ground, and not getting up again.

We watched until the last shadowhunter and downworlder were in battle, a fairy and new circle member. The fairies chest swelled as the shadowhunter wrapped his hand around the fairies' throat, not letting go until her life melted out of her, her thin green hair like seaweed falling limply in her sunken face, and he dropped her to the floor, and gave us a dark look before wiping his hand on his black outfit, and walked out into the fresh air, only to be stuck with a flash of blue sparks. He fell, and we heard his final cry, and then silence. Neither of us moved to see if he was alive.

But after, those words of his echoed in my mind. _"Now, a nameless monster who wears his face stands before me."_ I thought of the past few months, all that had occurred, all that would occur after, and I realized. I looked down at my hand, seeing it as if for the first time. Claws still splayed out, ready to cut, and I knew.

I was a werewolf now, that's all I will now ever be. I feel it deep within, it's just beneath the skin. I hate what I've become, but the nightmare's just begun. And now, before a war starts, I must confess that I feel like a monster.


End file.
